Three Drinks In
by AcidKraken
Summary: On her first visit to Goodneighbor, Nora steals a much-needed moment alone. Hancock sees an opportunity.


She'd only just seen him kill a man.

The scuffle took place earlier that morning, on the courtyard in front of Goodneighbor's sheet-metal gate. It was a clean kill - the flash of a blade, the shuffling of boots on pavement. No mess, no spectacle. Only a faint bloody smear, as the Neighborhood Watch dragged Finn's body around the corner to an alleyway out of sight.

Barely an hour had passed since then. Hardly enough time for Nora to drown her sour stomach in vodka, though that hadn't stopped her from trying. The sweaty tumbler in front of her was the latest one she'd emptied, since Hancock himself had settled in beside her at the bar.

"You've got guts," he said. "Half expected you to hightail it out of here, after all that icky business. But here you are... Rackin' up a tab."

He reached out, gave her empty glass an appreciative nudge, and Nora stiffened. Truth be told, she hadn't planned on drinking. Not this time- that's what she told herself. Not in a strange town. Not this early, not this much. She'd made that mistake on one notable occasion already, on her first afternoon in Diamond City, when Piper held her hair in the bathroom of the Dugout Inn.

So much for lessons learned. The row of glasses on the Third Rail's bartop composed a monument to her poor judgment. Three vodka sodas, back to back, all gone in a matter of minutes. All feeble attempts to steel her nerves, though she was no better off for trying. Time and time again, her eyes wandered to the splatter on Hancock's sleeve. It was a ghost of a stain, red on red, easily mistaken for a trick of the light. The sight of it made her mouth go dry.

"Y'know..." Hancock mused. "This ain't the first time I've had Nick Valentine on my doorstep. Figured you'd stick real close to him. Get what you came for. Be in and out in a flash."

Nora grit her teeth. Hancock was right on the money - dallying in Goodneighbor wasn't part of Nick's plan, but after the better part of an hour spent thrashing against the mildewy cushions of Amari's memory lounger, she'd been desperate for a moment alone. A few deep breaths, a few stiff cocktails to slow her racing pulse, and she figured she could screw her head on tight long enough to make it across the Common in one piece. Blessedly, the Third Rail was empty. Or it _had _been - save for a barely-conscious drifter slumped in an armchair in the far corner, nobody drank this early in the day.

Nobody, it seemed, but Hancock.

She'd been two drinks deep when he sauntered down the stairs. And she'd watched him, rigid with surprise, as he crossed the parlor with a spring in his step, passing over rows of open tables to take the seat beside her. His wordless greeting - a tip of his hat, that slight curl of his mouth - told her he wanted something. A stammering _thank you_, she imagined, or a nice ego-stroking for the morning's bloody theatrics. She didn't have it in her to offer either.

"So," he said. "Ol' Valentine's off doing god knows what... And you're _here_."

Nora drew in a steadying breath.

"I'm... Not sure what you're getting at."

Beneath that anxious tremble, her voice cut with a well-honed edge, one that sliced deep enough to send most men scurrying. But Mayor Hancock clearly wasn't _most men_. And to make matters worse, he'd been drinking in tandem with her - downing two shots for every tumbler she'd emptied. Growing bolder by the minute. Presently, he looked her up and down, taking an untoward interest in the neckline of her fatigues.

Nora shifted in her seat. Thanks to the Third Rail's stifling air, she'd unbuttoned her top not ten minutes earlier. A reckless choice. Hancock took full advantage of it, his gaze sliding down to linger on the small window of skin above her breasts.

"My point is..." he said. "Seems to me you're takin' a shine to my side of the Commonwealth."

Nora scoffed.

"Honestly?" she said. "I'm not overjoyed to be _anyplace _where stabbing passes for rule of law."

Hancock's eyes flicked up. He met her frigid stare with a tight-lipped smirk, and Nora shuddered. It was satisfying, to be sure, letting all that snark and bile crawl up her tongue. But as the seconds dragged on, that indignant flush on her cheeks faded, replaced by creeping regret.

_Stupid_. She knew better than to talk like that, especially to a stranger. Especially in a place like this. Nora swallowed thickly. She watched Hancock for some telltale hint of ruffled feathers, but she didn't find anything of the sort. Instead, he regarded her with that same lazy, half-lidded stare, mouth curling wider the longer she held his gaze.

"Hate to break it to you, sister," he said. "But violence gets the job done. Gonna be hard pressed to find a single place in the Commonwealth where that's _not _the case."

"That's _bullshit_," Nora snapped.

She shrank back as soon as the words left her mouth, her grip cinching tight around the splintered edges of the countertop. Hard to keep herself in check, when his condescending tone was tantamount to throwing flamer fuel on a fire. Fortunately for her, Hancock appeared to enjoy a bit of pugilism. When she stole a glance in his direction, his grin cracked wide, a slash of white teeth against scarred skin.

"Sure is," he said. "Glad we agree on something."

He took hold of a nearby whiskey bottle and filled his shotglass to the rim.

"Ain't exactly that simple, though," he continued. "So lemme lay it out for you. Commonwealth's always gonna be cutthroat. Difference _here _is, I get messy so other people don't have to."

"So that makes you judge, jury _and _executioner."

Her words sounded like someone else's, like the strident rebuke of a woman far braver - proof enough that her buzz had morphed into something unwieldy. Hancock snickered.

"If your tone's anythin' to go by," he said. "That ain't a compliment."

He tossed his shot back, then poured another. Nora looked on with quiet reproach. He carried on drinking like it was nothing, while the little alcohol she'd downed had made her speech clumsy and her judgment piss-poor.

No_,_ she wanted to say_. _It wasn't a compliment. She wanted to tell him that violence was a tool for small men and autocrats, that stabbing ne'er-do-wells was no real basis for functioning society. She wanted to say she spent half her goddamn life studying how to deal with men like Finn in a manner both fair and impartial. She wanted to paint a picture for him of all those soul-sucking nights spent poring over scattered manila folders, all those times she'd worked herself to the bone to serve a system that didn't exist anymore.

Instead, she shook her head mutely. Being quick on the draw may have served her well in her early twenties - she had the luxury, back then, to tell strangers to shove it where the sun didn't shine. But postwar Boston wasn't what it used to be, and it wasn't kind to women who chose their words on impulse.

"Not many people got the spine to throw shade in my direction." Hancock turned to face her, one arm thrown over the low back of his chair. "Principled gal, aren't ya? Breath of fresh air, really... Don't meet folks like you all that often."

He cocked his head and gave her a cloying smile, tongue prodding softly against the inside of his cheek. Nora scowled into her glass. She'd seen that same expression plenty of times, before the war, during those long years as an overworked public defender. She was fresh out of law school, forced to reckon with a revolving door of corruption and apathy. And her colleagues - prosecutors, senior attorneys, clerks and officials - all regarded her with that same patronizing sneer, as if her boiling frustration was just a symptom of inexperience. As if she'd get over it eventually, and come to see things their way.

"Lookin' a little glum, there," Hancock said. "Not that I'm surprised... S'pose Goodneighbor's a little rough for your type."

Nora wrinkled her nose.

"What's my _type?"_ she said, bitterly.

"Vaultie," he replied. "Fresh out of storage."

The blood drained out of her cheeks, and Hancock let out a rasping chuckle.

"Well, well." He poured himself another round, shotglass brimming one second and dry the next. "Hit the nail on the head, didn't I?"

"Lucky guess."

"More than luck, sister. Might as well be written on your forehead."

Nora winced. No point in asking what gave it away. It'd be naive of her to assume a man like him wouldn't notice, to assume that her dusty fatigues and a layer of wasteland grime would be camouflage enough. A few rough weeks in the Commonwealth hadn't turned her into someone else, as much as she wished they had.

"So," he said. "How long you been topside?"

She'd already lost herself, picking mindlessly at the soggy edges of her coaster, when his query jolted her to attention. It ripped the truth out of her mouth before she could think better of it.

"Two... two weeks," she stammered. "It'll be two weeks, tomorrow."

Hancock looked her up and down, black eyes flickering with intrigue. Nora recognized _that _look, too. The caravanners outside Diamond City watched her the same way, when she wandered back to town just a little too long after sunset. She imagined they could smell it on her, sense the softness in her like blood in the water.

"Begs the question, then..." he said. "Why you came sniffing around here in the first place."

Like always, a pitiful tightening in Nora's gut warned her against confiding in a stranger. Still, she'd learned from what little experience she had. Harsh truths - especially _her_ truth - dispensed with unwelcome curiosity faster than a withering affect or cold shoulders ever could.

"I'm looking for someone," she murmured. "My son."

Hancock chewed on her answer for a moment. Then, he gave a quick shrug.

"Huh," he said. "Well. You wouldn't be the first."

He kicked back in his stool, patting himself down, searching until he pulled a half-smoked cigarette from the lining of his coat.

"So... What's the story? Your kiddo a chem-head? Chasing tail?"

He produced a flip-lighter from another pocket, crooked cigarette dangling from his bottom lip. Nora blinked at him, at a loss. A subject like this tended to scare most people off, take the wind out of their sails, conjure long stretches of awkward silence followed by stilted expressions of sympathy. But Hancock was more concerned with his faulty lighter than anything. He flicked it once, twice, three times, his pace quickening, frowning at the meager shower of sparks.

Nora cleared her throat.

"The _Institute_ took him," she said, at last.

Hancock froze, thumb pressed halfway on the lighter's wheel.

"Oh," he breathed. "Fuck."

He took the cigarette from his mouth, frowning darkly at the far wall of the subway tunnel. Admittedly, Nora took some fleeting satisfaction from seeing him falter - this revelation was her sword to wield, a sort of trial-by-fire for anyone who dared to get too close.

Preston, Piper, Nick... They all took her confessions in stride. But they were gentle, selfless, magnanimous. Nothing like Hancock. She'd seen enough to be certain of that. It was positively blatant how he'd basked in the chaos of that morning, strutting away from the scene of a grisly murder like a cock on the walk.

So she expected this would be the end of it. She assumed her reality was a wet blanket - enough of a downer that he'd back off, give her a wide berth, get his kicks elsewhere. And it seemed that way, at first - his eyes wandered along the cracks in the concrete tile, his brow furrowed with an uncomfortable expression she hadn't seen before. But when his gaze came to rest on the row of bottles behind the bar, he brightened again. With a shove against his rickety footrest, he dangled himself over the counter - then pulled up another bottle of whiskey by the neck, placing it in front of her with a forceful thud.

"W-whoa, whoa," Nora choked. "Wh... What do you think you're doing?"

Hancock reached for her cup, and she yanked it back.

"What does it look like?" he asked. "Keep that buzz going, doll. Sure sounds like you could use it."

He stared her in the face, waiting, as if that rationale was sound enough to change her tune. But even met with her steely silence, he didn't relent. Instead, he pulled back and set to unscrewing the bottle, cracking the seal with one decisive twist.

"L... Listen," she began.

She looked on, helplessly, as he tossed the cap aside. It bounced off the counter and skittered out of sight.

"I... Shouldn't." He moved closer, angled the bottle towards her, and she clapped her palm flat over the top of her glass. "_Really_."

Hancock stalled in place, bottle hovering mid-pour.

"Don't sweat it," he said. "It's on me."

She shook her head.

"That's... That's _not_..._"_ she stammered. "I mean, I d-don't..."

She trailed off, throat tightening. Refusing his hospitality at this point was patently ungrateful at best, and insulting at worst - so she chose a more tactful excuse. A thin one, to be sure, but it was all she could muster under pressure.

"It's... It's not even noon," she said, weakly.

Hancock snorted.

"And?"

"And I_ shouldn't_."

He eyed the row of empty tumblers in front of her.

"Little late for that, sister," he said. "You're three drinks in."

Nora noticed, then, the way his gaze wandered to her left hand, where she'd pressed it resolutely across the rim of her glass. Around her ring finger was that simple gold wedding band - dulled by a patina of fresh scratches, but gleaming all the same.

"Don't get your panties in a twist," he said. "Can see you're spoken for."

He may as well have struck a match under her palm. Nora yanked back, then clutched her closed fist to her chest.

"That's..." she choked. "That's _not-_"

"_Easy_, dollface," Hancock said. He raised one palm in a gesture of mock surrender. "Simmer down. Just layin' the cards on the table. I know off-limits when I see it."

Nora drew in a sharp breath through her nose. She wanted to spit fire, to tell him the love of her life had a bullet in his brain - that she'd done the same to the man who shot him, and that was the only reason she set foot _here_, in this godforsaken town, a place she had no intention of coming back to once she left.

She opened her mouth to lay it all bare, but those words never came. Instead, she found herself taken aback at the slow uncoiling of her fist, the ease with which her hands came to rest in her lap. It wasn't that she believed him, not really. She suspected there wasn't much a man like him held sacrosanct beyond caps and influence. His acknowledgement of her wedding ring rolled off his tongue with all the levity of a playful jab.

Still, there was something oddly liberating about being mistaken, in whole or in part, for something she _wasn't_.

_Off-limits._

To most everyone else, that word held a different meaning - she was a recent widow, a desperate mother, a woman out of time. A veritable sinkhole of a person, better kept at arm's length. Thanks to Piper, everyone in Diamond City knew who she was. They regarded her the same way folks before the war regarded a nasty multi-car pileup on the freeway. Rubber necks, strained whispers, soft grimaces as they passed by.

Hancock, though... He looked at her like she was a pile of caps on a poker table, like she was a payout worth the risk. And presently, he interpreted her unprotected glass as permission. He topped it off with a generous pour. When she frowned in his direction, he flashed her yet another toothy grin.

Nora dug her fingers into the spongy wood of the bartop. His overtures had all the subtlety of a frag grenade. What's more, they smacked of her many reluctant visits to college dive bars, a fleeting chapter in her youth that was open and shut in a few short years. It had been a long time since anyone pushed so tirelessly to have a drink with her. And she never drank much at all, even in her college days, when the young twenty-somethings around her were all too happy to drink themselves sick. The Nora from before - a woman of reason and sound judgment - would have walked away already, never one to relinquish the control she held so dear. _Certainly_ never one to entertain the whims of a perfect stranger in exchange for a cheap thrill.

Therein laid the problem. With every step she took out here, every bullet fired from her patchwork pipe-pistol, she felt herself turning into someone else. The person she used to be came with having a newborn, with being on the other side of thirty. That Nora came with marriage, with suburbia, with the picture-perfect life she'd worked so damn hard to keep.

That Nora was long gone, already.

She looked at the drink in front of her. For once, she found herself wondering - what was the harm in letting go? She could forget, if she tried, what brought her here in the first place. She could forget about the suffocating guilt and grief and urgency. If the Commonwealth had taught her anything, it was to search for solace in the bottom of a bottle.

She pulled the glass towards her, and Hancock laughed, low and breathy.

"That's it, doll," he said. "When in Rome, right?"

A familiar expression twisted on his face - the same victorious air he'd put on that morning, as he twirled his knife between fingers stained black with blood.

Nora recognized that look for what it was - the smile of a man in control. The smile of a man who'd won. It didn't come as a surprise, not really. She knew damn well what kind of target she had painted on her back. She was drunk, alone, easy pickings. And despite the anxious shiver prickling along her spine, she decided that she didn't care.

As he watched her, Nora lifted her glass, put it to her lips, and drank.


End file.
